My thoughts on the NFC Championship Game

I am disappointed that the San Francisco 49ers lost, yes, but I am even more deeply perturbed by the Seattle fans who so blindly support a classless role model who has zero integrity.  

A super bowl ring won't make up for Sherman's lack of integrity.

Well-Timed Feedback Blog

I really think Seth Godin's blog posts are eerily timed to events and situations in my own life.

Over the last week or so, I started feeling like I'm not cut out for agency life - the pace is incredibly fast, the deadlines can be very tight, and there isn't a whole lot of hand holding.  In fact, a lot of the feedback I have been getting is good, but there always seems to be room for improvement.

Well, a couple of days ago I woke up to find this post by Seth:

The feedback you've been waiting for

"You did a great job. This is exactly what I was hoping for. I wouldn't change a thing. You completely nailed it, it's fabulous."

Of course, that's not feedback, really. It's applause.

Applause is great. We all need more of it.

But if you want to improve, you should actively seek feedback. And that feedback, if it's more than just carping, will be constructive. It will clearly and generously lay out ways you can more effectively delight your customers and create a remarkable experience that leads to ever more customers.

If you're afraid of that feedback, it's probably not going to arrive as often as you'd like it to. On the other hand, if you embrace it as the gift it can be, you may decide to go looking for it.

Empty criticism and snark does no one any good. But genuine, useful, insightful feedback is a priceless gift.

Applause is good too.

 Yes, feedback is a good thing and I need to remember that!  If people are taking the time to critique you, they feel like it's worth their time to help you improve and that's great!

Agency Living

I started 2014 with a new job - exciting times, for sure.  But also trying.

This week I worked an 11+ hour day on Monday, a 10+ hour day on Tuesday, and a 9+ hour day today.  I have been trying to keep to a healthy eating schedule (which has been interesting because I am so busy I rarely eat an actual meal at midday) and get to the gym (which has been less than successful) in what little free time I have.   

Last night, I was working on a blog post for my professional blog and I started nodding off around 9:30 sitting on the couch with my laptop.  I'm not joking.  I told Sam, I am incredibly honored to have been hired by this very prestigious agency but at the same time, I am suffering the loss of my personal life and have no work-life balance whatsoever.  Which is probably doubly difficult because in my last job I had the hang of everything, was working from home three days a week and had a very healthy personal life - I know, I was really spoiled.  One thing I do know, I am NOT going to let this get in the way of my health and fitness goals.  I let work consume me when I started at my last company and my eating habits went completely out the window... not so this time around!

Truth be told, it was a rough couple of days from Thursday afternoon to Tuesday morning working on a huge project for a HUGE client with an incredibly tight deadline.  I was wondering if I made a HUGE mistake on Monday night and was so worried that I'm not cut out of this that quitting actually entered my mind.  Talk about craziness!  Everything looked much better by Tuesday morning when I reassured myself that worst case scenario meant I would lose [another] job but more likely than not, the project would end and life would get back to normal.  Luckily, I was right.  

Tonight I am feeling simultaneously very proud and very overwhelmed.  The agency principle came to me today after reviewing my social media posts for our luxury jewelry designer and diamond client and told me they were fantastic... she asked me how much my other team members had revised my first draft and I said they each made one or two changes, which she was very pleased to hear.  She brought a jewelry magazine and several fashion sections from our local newspapers that she wanted me to read and come up with pitches for.  She also said I need to start looking at the big fashion and jewelry magazines on a regular basis so that I get accustomed to the industry's style of writing and colloquial terms.   

It all sounds like a lot of work, especially when I have marketing and SEO books lined up on my nook that I haven't gotten time to read yet.  I suppose this is what I'll start doing for fun... reading magazines when I get home from work.  C'est la vie.  I guess it's better than watching lots of TV but it takes a lot more brainpower too, and (as with all new jobs) I am completely mentally exhausted by the time I get home.  The last thing I want to do is work on "homework" and yet there are some seriously important things I need to read, chiefly all the bios and pitches we've done for the diamond client because I am going to be pitching him to a couple of publications this week.  

Pitching... eek!  As with everything in this job, I am diving right into the deep end and learning to swim on the fly.

Failure

It's very difficult for me to accept failure, especially when its my own.

On Thursday I was given a major project to work on that was due to our client on Monday midmorning.  I felt really good about the direction I was going in, and the other two people on my team seemed to be on the same page as I was - which made me even more confident.

Unfortunately, our agency director did not share our enthusiasm for my work.  She tore apart the action plan I spent hours drafting, had major revisions for one of my press releases and hated the other.

It was quite a blow to my confidence.

To make matters worse, the account director and agency director stayed at the office with me until 7:00 on Friday evening while we reworked the action plan.

It was bad enough that I had to stay late but I felt terrible about making them stay late as well.

I made sure to apologize and thank them profusely for their help and their patience and I'm sure it won't be the end of my career, but it was definitely an experience I hope to avoid in the future.

I ended up spending an hour and a half polishing up the action plan and rewriting the press release over the weekend.  I made sure that was alright with the agency director and she said as long as I made sure to track my time for billing purposes, that was absolutely okay.  Apparently she was going to be headed into the office today to catch up on some of her own projects.

I knew that starting a new job was going to require some additional hours on my behalf, but I forgot how much of a learning curve I was going to face and how resilient I was going to have to be.

Here's to another day, another dollar and another chance to improve.  Wish me luck tomorrow!

2014: Off to a Great Start!

I can hardly believe that 2014 is finally here!  

It's probably not a big surprise that the homestretch of 2013 was a little bit rough for me.  I'm not good with uncertainty and, unfortunately, there were a lot of unforeseen professional changes that happened during the holiday season.  

Even though I knew I at the time that losing my job was probably a blessing, I was surprised how much I was overcome by feelings of failure.  It was really difficult to emotionally divorce myself from all the marketing that my former company was doing, especially because they were either abandoning or seriously neglecting so many of the things I worked so hard to build.  

In the end, I stopped following the company social media pages and focused my attention on my future.

I got up the courage to approach my current employer at a holiday party we both attended.  I had interviewed with her team twice over the summer by my media relations skills are weak and they are a marketing and public relations agency that does a lot of pitching to media sources so they had reservations about bringing me on board.  At the party, the agency founder and agency director were both happy to see me and told me they'd been talking about me recently.  I took the opportunity to let them know I was no longer working with my previous company and that I'd appreciate them passing my name along if they heard of anyone looking for my skill set.  To my pleasant surprise, they expressed an interest in hiring me (again) and I offered to freelance for them a bit so that we could all feel out the situation.

The next day, she called me and asked me if I could start immediately.  We hammered out the details and I was in the office the following Monday.  

Surprisingly, I only freelanced for them three days before they made me an offer to come on board permanently.  I think it was partially my personality (I get along with the other team members very well) and partially my writing skills.  They had me drafting a lot of press releases, e-newsletters and social media posts during my freelance tenure and I think they really liked what they saw.  

So I moved right on into a full-time position with them and today I got handed a big Chinese New Year project to manage on behalf of my team.  To say that I'm thrilled would not do my emotions justice.  

I needed to draft two press releases, and my boss came in at 5 to see if I could have them done tomorrow.  I happily informed her I had already given one to the account director for review, and the other would be on his desk before I left the office.  She seemed very impressed and said, "That's wonderful, I am so glad you joined our team!"

"Me too," I told her. 

And things are going well in my personal life too!  I woke up yesterday and thought, "I'm getting married this year."  It was about a year ago that we picked our wedding date, and now we're just about seven and a half months away from the big day.  It's coming up fast.

Carina and I picked out the bridesmaids dresses over the holiday week while Sam and I were up in NorCal.  Jackie and Carina already have their measurements in, and Lindsay is going to head over to the salon tomorrow to get her measurements taken too.  I just need to follow up with Carrie and Michelle to make sure they remember to get their orders in by Sunday.  

I have the date for my bridal shower (in NorCal) set, we have an appointment to do the menu tasting for our wedding entrees, I have a list of bakeries we need to visit to taste wedding cake and talk pricing, and I am feeling really, really good about everything.

I still need to work on the invitation wording just a bit and then order all the invitations.  And I want to sit down with our florist again so I can work out some of the details with the flowers and decorations.  And then it's pretty much all done except picking out the boys' attire and getting our wedding bands made.  Obviously the little details like seating charts etc. are still to come, but those are things that will happen in July and we're still a LONG way off from then.

The other great thing is that I'm totally 100% recommitted to my fitness goals.  I didn't do so well in 2013, but I realize now that putting all my time and energy into my profession isn't the smartest thing to do because jobs come and go but your happiness and health lasts your whole lifetime and affects your lifestyle.  

So, on that high, high note, let me say that 2014 is going to be my best year yet!